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ATTENTION PLEAS
00:00:08 ATTENTION PLEAS How to Make Sure Other Officials Get Your Message
By Brent Killackey
Got some information you need to deliver to your fellow sports officials at the next officials association meeting or clinic? Want them to remember the message you’re trying to get across, such as some key points about this year’s rule change or mechanics officials keep tripping over?
Sure, your information is important. But we all know today’s attention spans aren’t what they used to be. In fact, author and communications consultant Paul Hellman’s book title says it all: You’ve Got 8 Seconds. The title is based on an insight gleaned from a 2015 study on attention spans conducted by Microsoft. (Which, incidentally, is a shorter attention span than that of a goldfish.)
If you think the officiating industry somehow bucks the trend, you haven’t been paying much attention to the vacant stares — and heads lowering to check cell phones — during recent association meetings. Or on Zoom, those eyes darting aren’t darting around because they’re engrossed in what you’re offering — they’re looking at other browser windows they’ve opened.
You may have information to present — vital information for the work officials do on the fields, courts, pitches and other game venues — but you’re vying to be heard amid a constant bombardment of information.
“We’re in the information age,” Hellman said in an interview with Referee. “Nobody wakes up in the morning feeling we’re lacking information. Most of us are drowning in information.”
Hellman’s book targets the business world. But many of the insights apply to the business of officiating — and the business of presenting information to others. Hellman offers some tips that can help win that battle for people’s attention and keep it, so more information is retained. And that’s vitally important in an industry where we’re expected to know all the rules and mechanics without being able to look at reference materials while we’re doing that job.
Here are a few tidbits you can use to craft your next presentation to grab your fellow officials, hold them and help them retain what you’re saying.
Before Your Presentation
Three Questions
“Focus doesn’t just mean to say less, but also to design a compelling message,” Hellman writes. One of the methods to improve the focus of your message is to ask three questions.
Hellman’s “Fast-Focus Method” advises presenters to ask themselves three key questions when formulating their presentation:
1. Why should I listen (or
read this)? Have a purpose statement with the audience in mind that guides you in crafting the presentation. Put yourself in the audience and ask what reason they should listen.
Or, it might be telling your audience the cost of not listening, he said. In officiating, the message might be: Pay attention or you’ll repeat this mistake and end up on next week’s videos. That can be compelling to a degree.
2. What exactly are you
saying? Spend some time finding and crafting your main message. Determining
your key points will help you hone in on your main message, which ideally should be short — 10 words or less, Hellman writes.
Sometimes the most important message about your material isn’t about the material itself — it’s about the importance of the material.
If you’ve got 12 rule changes you need officials to learn that day, “The most important thing might be why you need to learn these 12 things,” he said.
It becomes a motivational message that sets them up a little better to absorb the material.
3. What should I do with
this info? Provide a call to action. What do you want them to do with this information now that they’ve got it?
In officiating, the answer is usually pretty clear: Absorb it and apply it as you work the next contest.
during Your Presentation
Observe Your Audience
You can sense if people are listening and potentially retaining information you are presenting based on body language.
Eye contact is on the top of the list. You should be making eye contact with your audience, working the room. Hellman trains speakers to look at a person for 3-5 seconds, “until you can see the color of their eyes,” and move on.
“It’s the absolute most reliable way to do a pulse check on your audience,” Hellman said. “You can tell by looking at them if they’re tuned in or tuned out.”
If you’re facing a room full of officials not making eye contact, it’s time to do something different.
Ask a question, take a break, etc. Change things up to get their attention again. Share the Burden
Let the audience participate. “The trick is to engage the other person and move from monologue to dialogue,” he said.
Ask the audience, what’s the best strategy to master the important material tonight?
“We need to leave this room tonight and everybody needs to know these 12 things,” he said. “What’s the best way to approach that?”
Look for ways to be interactive. That makes it more interesting and engaging.
Perhaps even opposite questions can work. “If I wanted to make sure that nobody remembered any of the 12, what would I do?” That sets up a slightly different expectation for the presentation.
Keep Their Attention
So now that you’ve grabbed their attention, how do you keep it?
“Gamify” things, Hellman said. Have a quiz. Make it a contest.
Ask a question, such as, what do you think the biggest mistake people will make with this rule?
Make it interactive and you’ve got a better chance at keeping them engaged.
Points About PowerPoints
When you throw everything but the kitchen sink on slides, how much of that do you think will really be remembered in the moment? But Hellman offers a tip that comes from industries that are highly regulated and need to have lots of information presented to attendees — two decks.
One deck has all the information (for officiating this would be all the rulebook language, caseplays, etc. — all the specific verbiage that an official would need to fully master things).
The other deck is a slimmed down version of that information — a whole lot less text — the presenter actually uses during the presentation.
So they still get all the info, but they get what’s needed to hold their attention during the talk. Brent Killackey is Referee’s managing editor.
Bill Fitzgerald (center left), Kirkland, Wash., and Terry Granillo, North Bend, Wash., try to capture the attention of their fellow umpires during an outdoor presentation.
So now that you’ve grabbed mistake people will make with
You’ve Got 8 Seconds by Paul Hellman is available on Amazon.com for $12.29.
